Arab leaders are set to meet in Saudi Arabia on Friday for the first time to formulate a response to US President Donald Trump’s plan for the US to take ownership of Gaza, expel its Palestinian population and turn it into a Middle Eastern “Riviera.”
The meeting – including Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf Arab nations – will take place ahead of a larger Arab summit on March 4, Saudi Arabia said. A meeting of Islamic countries is expected to follow, according to the Egyptian foreign ministry.
Originally announced by Egypt in early February as an “emergency summit,” the gathering will take place five weeks after Trump first floated his plan, showing the struggle among Arab states to craft a unified stance.
Conflicting details have emerged about the Arab plan.
A report published in Egypt’s state-run Al Ahram Weekly said Cairo was proposing a 10-to-20-year plan to rebuild Gaza with Gulf Arab funding, while excluding Hamas from governing the enclave and allowing its 2.1 million Palestinian residents to remain.
Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly on Wednesday claimed that his country could fully rebuild Gaza in three years to a state that is “better than it was before,” without saying how he plans to achieve that. If a permanent ceasefire is reached in Gaza in the coming months, that would mean the vision could be completed before the end of Trump’s presidential term.
Most assessments suggest that a complete reconstruction of the enclave would take much longer.
The World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations said in a joint statement Tuesday that, according to their estimates, a return of essential services alone, including health, education, as well as the clearing of rubble, would take three years. The full rebuilding of the devastated enclave would need 10 years and cost more than $50 billion, with housing alone estimated to cost $15 billion. The Egyptian prime minister said that his country’s plan takes those assessments into consideration.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian government and real estate developers in the country have been eyeing a role in the rebuilding process, which could come with contracts worth billions of dollars.
“We have experience, and we have applied it (before) in Egypt,” Madbouly said in a news conference in Egypt’s new administrative capital. “The capability to rebuild the (Gaza) Strip and executing it in way that will make it better than it was before the destruction – truly three years is an acceptable timeline to do this.”
Trump said on Wednesday that he had not yet seen the Egyptian plan.
‘Long and complex journey’
Despite urgency from Arab countries to present Trump with a convincing counterproposal, rebuilding Gaza is a “long and complex” journey, the World Bank, EU and UN said.
It will likely need to address governance and finance with international backing –contentious issues that could be difficult to resolve.
Any reconstruction effort would be futile if a fragile ceasefire in Gaza fails, plunging the territory back to war.
A source familiar with the reconstruction plans said that funding could include public and private donations, likely from the EU and Gulf Arab countries, adding that there could be an international donor conference for Gaza in April.
The plan could also fall through if Israel, which controlled Gaza’s border long before Hamas’ October 2023 attack, refuses to cooperate. So far, it has backed Trump’s plan to de-populate Gaza, and its defense ministry this week announced plans to launch a “Directorate for the Voluntary Departure of Gaza Residents” to facilitate, it says, Gazans who wish to emigrate.
Hamas and Israel reached an agreement last month for the first phase of a truce that could culminate in permanent ceasefire. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Tuesday that talks will start on a potential second phase of the truce – two weeks after they were due to begin.
The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority said on Thursday it was prepared to govern Gaza after the war, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected. The PA isn’t expected to participate in the Saudi meeting on Friday.
Hamas has sent conflicting messages on what role it sees for itself in Gaza after the war. Over the weekend, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan sent a defiant message, saying during an interview in Qatar that the group would decide for itself who will govern Gaza. But this week, Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesperson, said the group is not “clinging to power.”
Egypt’s state-backed Al Qahera News reported Saturday that Egypt is working to form a temporary committee to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza.
Meanwhile, Qatar said that Palestinians should decide who governs them in the future.
The UAE is one of the few Arab nations that has expressed willingness to consider a role in postwar Gaza at the invitation of a reformed Palestinian Authority and with a commitment from Israel for a future Palestinian state. It has rejected Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians.
But Hamas has warned that it will treat anyone that takes Israel’s place in Gaza as it treats Israel, calling on regional states not to become “agents” for Israel.